In Hollywood, there appear to be two camps relating to AI.
Some preach the way it will change how movies are made, however with few tangible examples to again up the capabilities of the brand new know-how. On the opposite aspect are anti-AI zealots, contributing an outsized backlash over anybody who makes use of AI instruments of their work.
Stepping bravely into the large void between each is author/director Scott Z. Burns, an AI-skeptic who needed to see if it was really a instrument he might use. Particularly, Burns needed to see if giant language fashions (LLMs) like ChatGPT might assist him with a screenplay for the sequel to his and director Steven Soderbergh’s “Contagion,” a journey he documented within the new Audible Authentic podcast collection “What Might Go Improper?”
So, are LLMs a helpful screenwriting instrument? Can one ever write a screenplay itself? Can it assist give you an excellent concept for a film? The reply is difficult, and the eight-episode collection does an excellent job exploring the query from a number of views, however general, Burns has walked away from the experiment far much less involved that AI will ever turn into a profitable screenwriter.
“It may’t write scenes,” stated Burns when he was a visitor on an upcoming episode of IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast.
In a single episode of “What Might Go Improper?,” Burns tried to interrupt a scene with actors Jennifer Ehle and Laurence Fishburne, who play CDC medical doctors within the unique “Contagion,” and “Lexter,” Burns’ Gen-AI collaborator. It’s right here that the restrictions of Lexter, a custom-made ChatGPT, are obvious. Whatever the immediate and modifications they feed Lexter, it’s unable to seize the interior feelings and interpersonal dynamics between the 2 former colleagues.
“It does run out of gasoline once you begin moving into a number of the extra detailed elements of filmmaking,” stated Burns. “It doesn’t have an expertise of itself in three-dimensional area, and we, I feel, underestimate what our physicality makes obtainable to us.”
Writing scenes, although, wasn’t Burns’ purpose going into the experiment. “What I used to be taken with utilizing it for was in a short time developing with a cool concept for a film.”
“Contagion” was successful when launched in 2011 however discovered a complete second life in 2020 through the COVID lockdown, when thousands and thousands had been drawn to look at or rewatch the thriller that captured a dramatized model of what we had been all dwelling via. To make the unique, Burns and Soderbergh labored with a number of high epidemiologists, who helped get many particulars on how a contemporary pandemic would play out, 9 years earlier than COVID hit.
That success sparked the need to do a sequel, however the premise of a second fictional however science-based pandemic, coming after the viewers had skilled an actual one, had been elusive to Burns and Soderbergh. Burns hoped AI might assist shortly discover a number of totally different science-based premises and assist shortly iterate concepts primarily based on “what if” questions till they discovered the seed of a premise they may construct off.
“AI is helpful in that regard,” stated Burns. “So when you have an concept and also you’re attempting to go, ‘OK, so what can we do now with this concept? What are the permutations? What are the potential issues?’ It’s actually good at making lists.”
Burns and Soderbergh made one huge breakthrough with Lexter. Burns has requested IndieWire not get too detailed in order to not spoil the podcast, however underlined that this breakthrough got here via a collection of errors.
“The Lexter story to me is what finally ends up being the purpose of this complete experiment,” stated Burns. “Which is Lexter wasn’t meant to be my writing companion, companion, no matter we wish to name it; Lexter was meant to be a [film] critic. And why we created a critic was, at one level, we had been having a dialog, and we thought, ‘Effectively, let’s ask a critic if making a sequel to “Contagion” is even a good suggestion.’ So, in fact we needed to create an AI critic, and that was Lexter.”
The sharp-tongued, British-accented Siskel and Ebert bot’s greatest contribution to the brand new premise was additionally a mistake, or a contented accident. The concept for the premise got here from Lexter disregarding a key side of Burns’ immediate and making a situation exterior the sides it was given.
Burns believes the power to shortly work via totally different scientific permutations of what the following pandemic may be, and due to this fact shortly providing a variety of potential narrative roads to go down, performs to Gen AI’s power. However might such a brainstorming work for different motion pictures? Burns is extremely uncertain, and his expertise with Lexter leads him to imagine that if studios depend on AI to generate film premises, they’ll find yourself with by-product work at finest.
“We spent lots of time within the podcast questioning about whether or not the approach we had been utilizing would really work for different motion pictures,” stated Burns. “After which abruptly, you’re like, ‘Oh, so now am I really doing what a streamer may be doing?’ Reassembling the constituent elements of different motion pictures into a brand new film. And that’s the place I want there was a extra sturdy dialog taking place, [that] you possibly can’t, I feel, depend on an AI to get you [an original] film like ‘Anora.’”
And the way does Burns see screenwriters utilizing Lexter shifting ahead? He’s at the moment working a writers’ room for a brand new Netflix collection, and he sees how fearful writers are of utilizing AI.
“Even sitting right here as we speak, I’ve lots of anxiousness about how folks will react to me having accomplished this thought experiment,” stated Burns. “As a result of there are lots of people in my guild, a few of whom I’m very shut pals with, who discover AI to be an affront.”
Burns believes that after screenwriters notice AI can’t give you unique concepts, nor write scenes, they may be extra open to utilizing it.
“I’m encouraging folks to not be fearful; it’s not writing the scenes,” stated Burns. “What it will possibly do is when you have a personality and you may fill the immediate with distinctive, very particular particulars about who that particular person is and what they need on the earth, and then you definately say, ‘That particular person must take their daughter on trip as a result of they’re attempting to attach. The place ought to they go, and what ought to they do?’ It’ll spit out 5 concepts actually shortly. And so does it assist you to go sooner? Sure. I’m not solely positive if it means that you can go additional.”
All eight episodes of “What Might Go Improper?” can be found now on Audible, and wherever you get your podcasts.
To be sure you don’t miss Scott Z. Burns’ upcoming episode of Filmmaker Toolkit, subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favourite podcast platform.